35 Times The Westboro Baptist Church Lost Badly

1. The time when their tires got slashed and no one in an Oklahoma town would help fix them:

Shortly after protesting the funeral of Army Sgt. Jason James McCluskey in Oklahoma, members of the Westboro Baptist Church headed back to their minivan, only to discover that its front and rear passenger-side tires had been slashed. To make matters worse, when they drove into town they were unable to find anyone who would repair it.

5. The time when this kid ran into them and staged his own peaceful counter-protest:

According to his mother: “After our walk around Washburn campus, we ran into the Phelps … Josef was determined to make his own statement so we went to the car and with pencil and his sketch pad, he made up his own little sign that reads ‘GOD HATES NO ONE.’ I have never been prouder. Those people are scary but he stood strong, was respectful and stood by his convictions. He will be a good man, I have no doubt. I got my Mother’s Day present early.”

6. All of the times people came together to make “human walls.” Like this one in Tennessee:

Nearly a thousand people created a “human wall” to support the family of deceased soldier Shan Edward Lively from the possible protests of Westboro Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. Calls to support the family swelled this week on Facebook and other websites once word spread that WBC was threatening to protest.

7. This one in Aurora, Colorado, after the movie theater shooting:

People lock arms to prevent members of the Westboro Baptist Church from attending a memorial service outside the Aurora Municipal Center in Aurora, Colorado. The memorial was for the victims that were killed and wounded during the mass shooting at a movie theater.

8. And this one at Texas A&M:

9. The time this artist demonstrated his own right of freedom of speech in front of their headquarters by painting this huge mural:

New York City artist Scott LoBaido works on his painting of Rev. Fred Phelps and daughter outside Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. LoBaido took a break from his 50-state tour of painting American flags on rooftops in each state to exercise his First Amendment rights and finish his painting in the public spaces near the Westboro Baptist Church compound.

10. All of the times people used the protests to raise money for charity:

And especially all of the times individual communities came together to defeat them:

28. “Westboro Baptist church tried to protest a friend’s funeral. This was his ‘shield’ for 5 miles long.”

29. “The amazing crowd that showed up in Columbia, Missouri, this morning to silently and peacefully keep Westboro Baptist Church from protesting the military funeral for Specialist Sterling William Wyatt and from harassing his mourning family. RIP.”